Supes OK pay-equity law on not asking prior wages

Citing concerns over the wage gap between women and men, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to ban employers from asking job applicants how much money they made in previous positions.

The measure was among three closely watched ordinances that went before the board Tuesday. The supervisors also passed legislation to revise the city’s affordable housing requirements for new developments and to punish landlords who boot out tenants on the pretense of moving in — then turn around and rent the dwelling to someone else.

Supervisor Mark Farrell sponsored the pay-equality law, which forbids employers from disclosing any employee’s salary history without that person’s permission. Such disclosures would put women at a disadvantage, Farrell said, because they start off at a lower point. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that in San Francisco women earn 84 cents for every dollar that their male peers make, slightly better than the national average of 79 cents.

The law would apply to all employers in San Francisco, including city contractors and subcontractors.

“The gender wage gap is real, and it’s damaging,” Farrell said. He noted that the disparity between female and male workers has narrowed by only half a cent every year since the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which outlawed wage discrimination based on gender.

At that rate, it will take until 2059 for women and men to earn commensurate salaries, Farrell said. He predicted that President Trump will set the nation even further behind. In March, Trump repealed a 2014 executive order by former President Barack Obama that required companies with federal contracts to abide by 14 labor and civil rights laws, including parental leave and equal pay for women and men.

San Francisco is following Philadelphia, which in January became the first city in the nation to pass a wage-parity law. Lawmakers in Massachusetts are contemplating similar legislation.

Also Tuesday, the supervisors unanimously passed a new housing law that requires developers of large properties to make a portion of their units — 18 percent for rentals and 20 percent for condominiums — affordable, dividing it up among low-, moderate- and middle-income households. The law would not apply to large swaths of the Mission, SoMa and the Tenderloin, where developers have to sell or rent a quarter of their units at below-market-rate prices.

Additionally, the board unanimously passed a law that seeks to keep the city’s landlords honest. It laid out several proof-of-residence requirements for landlords who evict their tenants saying they want to occupy a dwelling themselves. The bill sponsored by moderate Supervisors Farrell, Jeff Sheehy, Malia Cohen and London Breed incorporated elements from a competing proposal by progressive Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Jane Kim and Hillary Ronen. They pushed for a provision that would allow nonprofit groups to sue on behalf of evicted tenants, which Sheehy ultimately took up.

Peskin and his progressive colleagues also pushed an amendment that would have allowed tenants to sue deceptive landlords even if the tenants had already been paid to move out. It died under objections from the moderate side of the board.